Thick and Thin
by Talyn
Summary: How did the Overmind destroy the soul of Sarah Kerrigan? "I am Zerg now, and I like the way I am. You don't know how this feels..." Is there any way that she can still be redeemed? Now rated R.
1. Prologue: The Fall of New Gettysburg

**Through Thick and Thin **

**Prologue: The Fall of New Gettysburg**

The Zerg hurled themselves into a wall of fire and ordnance. Hundreds died instantly, but thousands more took their place.

Sarah Kerrigan activated the long-range communicator in her combat suit. "This is Kerrigan. We've neutralized the Protoss but there is a huge wave of Zerg advancing on our position. We need immediate evac!"

The Ghost sighted down the barrel of her canister rifle and fired a blast straight into the face of the towering ultralisk storming across the barricades. It seemed to have the effect the last four shots didn't, and the enormous beast crashed to the ground. All around her, machine gun fire filled the air as every available marine fired on the swarms of Zerg that surged down towards them.

_Why is nobody picking up? _"Uh, boys? How about that evac?"

She couldn't help the slight note of panic that slipped into her voice as her radio signals to the fleet went unanswered. Another shot from her rifle and a zergling exploded in a shower of blood and slime, but no answer from the fleet. Civilians, their faces white with fear, rushed about her, most enclosed in their huge armored SCV suits, shoring up the barricades and trying to keep the bunkers from being overrun. All around her, marines screamed battle cries as they fought and died, so hopped up on stimulants and adrenaline that they felt neither pain nor fear.

She issued a quick command to have her expeditionary force get back to base, stat – they were exhausted and beat up from a pitched battle in the Protoss camp, but she needed those tanks if she was going to hold out until the fleet showed up.

Still no response, not from Arcturus, not from Jim, not from Derre, the new tactical commander. Hell, she would have been glad to see General Duke at this point. _Where is our rescue?_

Suddenly, there were demonic howls in the air above her. _Mutalisks..._ "Commander? Jim, what the hell is going on up there?" Nothing. Static. A glave worm ripped through the marine next to her, burrowing through his armor and leaving a gaping hole where his heart and lungs had been. It burst through the other side and leapt at her, but she pulled a vibroknife from her thigh scabbard and cut it cleanly in half. She fired another shot from the rifle, and another zergling died – not that it seemed to matter. For every one she and her men killed, two seemed to take its place.

She switched her headset to command frequency, so every human left on the space platform could hear her. "The front lines are about to be overrun. Captains, fall back to the bridge – get all the civilians to the Protoss base we just burned down, it will be the easiest to defend." She covered her ears as a Behemoth-I type Battlecruiser, just laboriously completed days before, plummeted to the steel surface of the space station and detonated with a roar that defied all definition.

"Everyone fall back! Fall back!" she screamed into her headset. All around her marines scrambled out of their positions, herding the civilian workers and engineers away from the monstrous horde. Sarah fired another canister shell over the heads of the fleeing soldiers, and another Zerg perished in a shower of steel and blood.

_Sarah... can't leave her behind..._ She almost jumped to hear Jim Raynor's voice, echoing through her mind. He was shouting himself hoarse, on the bridge of some ship ten thousand miles away, and somehow his mind had reached out to her across the distance.

_Jimmy? How... never mind. It's not important. Where are you? What's happening?_

Raynor's mind flinched at the contact – fear and anger and a sudden, fierce joy were foremost in his thoughts. _Sarah! Can you hold on? Mengsk has abandoned you to the Zerg, like he abandoned the whole planet. He's gone mad, I think, and he's taken most of fleet with him. They are jumping to hyperspace right now!_

Though her body still fought and retreated, it was working on pure instinct. Kerrigan's mind reeled – Arcturus couldn't leave her, he had _saved _her, years before. He was her mentor, her boss... in some ways, almost her father. It was impossible that his ambition was more important than her. But Raynor wouldn't lie to her – Jimmy _couldn't_ lie to her mind to mind, he wouldn't know how.

_No..._ But even her thoughts were no more than a whisper.

_Listen, Sarah, you have to hold on. I've still got the _Hyperion_, and at least some of the fleet didn't want to cut and run, and leave you guys behind. Commander Derre is with me, too. My boys and I will be there in six hours, we'll get you all out. Can you hold for six hours?_

Kerrigan fired her rifle again, but a sob rose up in her throat. The Terran retreat was turning into a rout. Though where she was, her elite cadre of ghosts and marines were holding the line and trying to keep everyone together, it was only a matter of time before they were all annihilated. Another ultralisk appeared through the masses of the Zerg, tearing through the rearguard and ripping apart a siege tank as it tried to retreat. The New Gettysburg base was in flames all about her.

_Jimmy, I can't hold them for six more _minutes_! We are running out of places to fall back to, and there seems to be no end of these monsters._

A desperate plan suddenly revealed itself to her. _Jim, when you get here, our survivors will be holed up in the ruined Protoss base – you should have the coordinates. I won't be with them. I've got to give myself up._

She could feel Raynor's fear, all the way from orbit, and his desperation. _Darlin,' you can't surrender to the Zerg! They're animals, they don't know how to take prisoners! Just hold tight, and we'll be there._

_They want_ me_, Jim, not this space station. Don't ask me how I can tell. I just know it. Please... please don't give up on everyone down here – this is the only chance I've got to save their lives._

_Sarah... I..._

_I'm breaking contact, Jim. I have to give myself up to the Zerg._

_Don't leave me, Sarah. I love... I love you._

Hot tears escaped from beneath her facemask. _Dammit, Raynor, you can't do this to me! Goodbye, Jim. Don't let them win..._

"I love you, too..." she whispered. No one could hear her, of course, through the gunfire and the explosions and the screams of the dying. But she said it, and she hoped to whatever God was listening that Jim knew it.

Then she opened her mind to the Zerg. It was icy cold, and utterly revolting and alien thing, so different from the minds of humans. They truly were only well-trained animals, like ants, or bees in a hive, utterly enslaved to the will of their masters. She followed the psychic trail of control back, back, infinitely far until she reached the frigid and hideous mental "persona" of their overseer, the Cerebrate Zasz,

_Call off your attack, Zerg, and I will come peaceably!_

The cerebrate was utterly shocked. _What are you to speak to me thus? You are not of the Firstborn Sons, nor of the Swarm. Yet you can reach beyond to touch me._

_I am the one known as Kerrigan._

She could almost feel the monster's gloating pleasure upon hearing her name. _So this is the famous Terran so desired by the Overmind? I shall be greatly rewarded for bringing you in._

_You will get nothing from me, monster, unless you call off your attack – I will die fighting unless you agree to spare all of my...my..._ Kerrigan struggled for a word – the Zerg had no word for "soldier," "unit" or even "army." She got the closest word she could. _My brood. They are to be spared, and when my broodmate recovers them, he is to be unharmed. Otherwise, I shall die and your Overmind shall have no prize._

_Who are you to dictate terms to me, insolent one?_

_I...am...Kerrigan. _She sent the words will all of the mental force she could. It was a psychic thrust born in her fear, nursed in desperation and betrayal, and guided by years of harsh mental training. She could feel the Cerebrate recoil from this psionic "blow."

There was a brief pause, and suddenly, the flood of Zerg fell back. All around her, Marines cheered at the reprieve, and fell back into their units. The civilians streamed past, towards the illusory safety of the destroyed Protoss base.

The monster was in her mind again. _I agree to your terms. Seek out the primary hive cluster on this construct, and I will transport you to my physical shell. Your brood shall be unmolested for a period of 1 solar rotation. If you resist, I will kill them all._

She had no choice, and she knew it. _It is agreed._

Sarah Kerrigan took one last look around her, at the filthy, bleeding, battered army that had fought and died for a man who betrayed them, who had seen such horrors yet still survived, and she was proud. Proud to be a human, proud to love and be loved. She scribbled a note out to Jim, and told her second-in-command to pass it along. She was going out on a "scouting" mission.

She didn't say that she would never be back. She would never see them again.

She activated her cloaking device and disappeared towards the Zerg army. _Goodbye, Jim. I love you._


	2. Chapter 1: Facing the Monster

**Through Thick and Thin **

**Chapter 1: Facing the Monster**

It was very strange being transported _inside_ the belly of an enormous Overlord, though not as uncomfortable as she had imagined. The thing functioned like an organic Dropship, producing a soft and slightly slimy webbing to rest in, and to prevent its monstrous cargo from getting damaged. Sarah still had her armor, her weapons, her cloaking device – the Zerg had even managed to find her a box of edible SynthRations, delivered to her by a pair of crablike Drones, each about the size of a small horse. It was making her nervous.

_I am being treated more like an honored guest than a prisoner of war – why? What does this alien bastard want with me?_

She had reached the ruined surface of Tarsonis an hour previous, and had been transferred from one Overlord to another – collected and dropped off at different hive clusters, all of which seemed to be based in the ruins of major cities. As she watched, the Zerg seemed to be stripping the ruins of resources – including steel, petroleum, and vespene gas – and bringing them to the hive centers to be "eaten" by the huge, organic hives.

The process of collection and transport was comfortable, gentle even, and somewhere in the back of her mind there was a steady hum, pulsing to a lullaby rhythm that slowed her thoughts, relaxing her body like a narcotic. She didn't even realize that she had fallen asleep.

* * *

_In her dream she was playing outside on her homeworld, Antiga Prime, her six-year old knees hidden in the tall grass. Her hair was plaited into red pigtails, and she wore a light colored jumpsuit that brushed against the meadow as she ran through. Suddenly there was a voice that she almost recognized calling her name._

_"Sarah, Sarah, you need to get back to the house! Your mother is getting worried, you've been gone all day."_

_Somehow she knew this man was Father, but when she looked at him, he had no face. He beckoned for her, and she ran to him and hugged him, because she loved him. When she looked up, however, the man was no longer her forgotten father, but Col. Hunter, the harsh and bitter man who had been charged by the Confederacy to turn fifty boys and girls between the ages of four and seven into Ghosts._

_Twenty-three of them survived the training and came out, twelve years later._

_Col. Hunter scowled at her, and she broke away from him, afraid of his anger, but before he could strike her he disappeared and in his place was Arcturus, reaching out his hand to help her. She took it, because she knew that if she didn't, Col. Hunter would come back._

_He smiled at her, and they walked together until she stumbled on a rock, and her six-year-old self fell and skinned her knee. When she looked to him for help, he struck her across the face and disappeared, leaving her alone and in pain in an unknown land._

"_They all have hurt you, my daughter, abandoned you cruelly and left you to suffer alone." The voice was soothing, comforting, and healed her pain. "Soon, you will come to me, and you will be the most precious of my children, and you will never know fear or loneliness ever again."_

_She wanted to go to the voice, but it kept getting farther away... she ran after it, but the faster she pursued the more it fled before her, until she was chasing it endlessly... she needed it, it was the only way to end her pain._

* * *

Kerrigan awoke with a start, still enclosed in the protective cocoon within the Overlord's belly. She blinked her eyes rapidly and adjusted her protective facemask, trying to remember her dream. It slipped away from her, however, and her concentration was distracted by the background humming, which had grown more intense while she slept.

She opened her mind again, trying to find clues as to where she was, and was almost overpowered by the psychic pressure on her mind. Wherever she was, there was a being of enormous power nearby – power so great that it would make her greatest efforts seem like a flare next to a volcano. She hastily erected her psychic defenses again, and then checked her weapons and gear on reflex.

Not, she reflected bitterly, that they were going to do her much good.

She was placed on the infested soil of the planet by the Overlord with such speed that she didn't realize what was happening until she was already on the surface. Before her was the enormous shape of the Cerebrate. It was huge – it resembled nothing so much as an immense, maggoty brain, pulsing and quivering beneath an armored "skin." Keeping her defenses rigidly in place, she briefly opened her psionic senses and "saw" it for what it truly was.

It was utterly foreign and somehow _wrong, _an offense against nature, and it made the horror of its physical appearance seem almost pleasant by comparison. The cerebrate was situated at the center of an impossibly complex web of connection and control. Icy black tendrils of enslaving will radiated from it in four dimensions, and always they stirred and lashed about, seeking to dominate all living things. That which could not be controlled, she realized with a flash of insight, would be destroyed so utterly that no evidence of its existence would ever remain.

All around her, she could feel the pulse of the Zerg base, a deep basso thrumming like a satanic heartbeat, right on the edge of her subconscious. Kerrigan's body tried to shudder in horror, but she choked down the impulse. The Ghost's heart raced, and sweat suddenly slicked the inside of her skintight combat jumpsuit. All around her, armies of the alien Zerg scurried about, jostling at each other, and tearing apart what remained of the capital city of Tarsonis.

The voice of the thing before her seemed to come from everywhere at once. _Touch my shell, Terran_, it whispered in her mind. The creature pulsed, only a meter away from her, and she felt her arm move of its own accord.

She shut her mind in horror, straining with the effort, and battled mightily to bring her hand back to her side. "Not until I am sure you have kept your part of the bargain, Zerg," she said aloud. Her voice shook. "Show me that my brood is safe."

There was a brief pause, and when the creature again "spoke," it seemed almost amused. _I could break your mind apart right now, oh Kerrigan, and there is nothing you could do about it. Why should I uphold my end of the agreement?_

Sarah felt a brief stab of panic, but she forced it out of her voice. "I will take poison if you try, you disgusting bug," she hissed. "I have a lullaby in my suit – complete brain death within seconds. I know you need me alive, so why don't you stop fraxing around and show me what I want to see?"

The cerebrate's amusement vanished. _See what I see, insolent one._ Kerrigan barely had time to blink before her mind was bombarded by images, slightly distorted as though seen through alien eyes.

* * *

_Three battlecruisers, still emblazoned with the Sons of Korhal insgnia, hovered in place a thousand yards above the ruined Protoss base. A flood of Zerg spread out in a half circle around the ruins, just out of range._

_Kerrigan watched a fleet of Dropships cruise down out of orbit and coast over the hastily erected barricades, disgorging companies of marines to reinforce her barricades, and picking up streams of panicked civilians._

_An armored hoverbike shot out of a dropship and blasted towards the front lines. The man on the bike shouted orders all around him, then seemed to get into an argument with another man wearing powered armor. The marine, resplendent in a Major's rank markings, pressed a piece of paper into the biker's hand._

_The biker's face could not be seen behind his armored faceplate, but he crumpled the paper and threw it to the metal surface of the space station. He shouted more orders, and the marines abandoned the barricade and fell back to the dropships. This man was the last man off the surface of New Gettysburg station, and before he disappeared, he scanned the ruined space station one last time, desperately searching for hope amidst the ashes. He didn't find it, and disappeared into the dropship as the flood of Zerg, no longer checked, surged forwards. Within minutes, the fleet disappeared into the blackness of space._

* * *

She was truly alone. Her men were safe, but there would be no rescue – Jim thought she was dead for sure. She looked back up at the cerebrate. If the Zerg thought the tears were unusual, it didn't make a comment.


	3. Chapter 2: When All Hope Is Lost

**Through Thick and Thin**

**Chapter 2: When All Hope Is Lost**

She was alone on an infested world. Tarsonis City had been the capital of the Confederacy, which was itself the most populated planet in the Koprulu sector. There were no humans left, however – the great city was dark, and the streets that weren't impassable from the carnage were filled with hundreds of thousands of milling Zerg savage searching for any hapless survivors. The enormous crustacean Drones were slowly dismantling the city, reducing it to rubble and extracting any resources they could.

Weeks before, Zerg had descended on the planet – the Confederacy, had fought back long and hard, throwing hundreds of thousands of marines and soldiers at the Swarm, buying time for at least some of the civilian population to escape. In the end, however, they were overrun, and the streets had been filled with millions of screaming men and women, dying. Even now the desolate cities still screamed on the psychic plane, begging for respite from the pain and horror and awful betrayal.

And this _thing_, this monstrous Cerebrate, sat in the middle of the currents of horror, feeding off of the pain like a great bloated spider. It's frigid touch caressed Kerrigan's psychic profile almost tenderly, and she pushed it away with all the power left in her soul.

_The bargain was made, and I have upheld my end,_ it's loathsome thoughts squirmed through her mind. _You belong to the Swarm, now. Discard your weapon._

Sarah felt sick. The thrumming "heartbeat" of the Zerg hive was growing ever louder, threatening to drown out all thought, all reason. Her canister rifle fell from nerveless fingers, and she heard the dull squish of it hitting the creep-covered ground almost absently. She tried to close her mind to the overwhelming pressure from the Cerebrate, but the more she tried to reinforce her mental "walls" the stronger the compulsion pressed upon her, and she grew ever more exhausted.

Bile rose in her throat, and she tore off the face mask before retching. The crushing agony was too much, and she dropped to her knees as her stomach kept heaving. She was helpless.

A Zerg larva, looking like nothing so much as a half-meter long centipede, slithered over her legs. Kerrigan shuddered and ordered her body to rise, but the pounding in her head redoubled and folded in on herself. A pain-wracked sob rose in her throat, and the tried to suppress it. She failed.

The larva was crawling up her leg as she lay on the ground, and she weakly tried to tug it off. It simply ignored her efforts. Instead it wrapped itself around her hips and then climbed up the valley between her breasts, a sick mockery of a lover's embrace.

Kerrigan's struggles began again, more desperately this time. She pulled her slender blade from its sheath on her thigh, and brought it up to kill the monster. Before she could strike the deathblow, however, she was stopped by a mental command. The Cerebrate had plowed through her mental guard like it wasn't even there, and its compulsion was everywhere in her mind, too massive to fight or to hide from.

_Do not move, Terran,_ it commanded with a note of impatience. _Your resistance is commendable, but it grows tiresome. Now BE STILL._

She was paralyzed, utterly unable to stop the larva as it coiled around her neck. There was a sudden shock of pain, and the control loosened enough to allow her to scream. The larva was burrowing into the base of her skull – the alien was physically present in her body. She screamed in pain and fear and loss, her screams joining with those left behind by millions of uncelebrated slain, echoing through the dead city of Tarsonis until the darkness took her.


	4. Chapter 3: Dreams of the Dying

She had died, and now she was in Hell. Why not? She had blood on her hands. But if it was hell, why was it was so cold...

* * *

_Colonel Hunter had pit the teams of Ghost trainees against each other – only a extraordinary combination of teamwork, cleverness, and individual viciousness kept the children alive as they fought each other and the system designed to turn them into machines._

_The girl, TC-002, committed her first murder at the age of thirteen. The older boy was labeled NY-011, fifteen or sixteen years old. He was from another team, and was well known for his aggression. He had already been processed, and the scars from the neural dampeners shone dirty white in poor light of the small female 'fresher. He had learned how to take his pleasure from the weaker girls, how to convert his fear and rage and helplessness into lust – not just for sex, but for control._

_And now he had cornered TC-002 in a refresher. The girl was growing beautiful, her shockingly red hair too long and her blue eyes and soft face masked the harsh experiences of her life. And now she stood against him, face fearful and defiant. She knew what he wanted – what was confusing was that she wanted it too, just a little bit, even though he would hurt her. "Get the hell away from me," she hissed in the semidarkness. "Tango team will kill you if you touch me."_

_His voice was deep and cruel, one of an evil man more than a wicked boy. "November team protects its own, girl. Your leader won't start a war with us over _you_, not when XH-001 and her team are trying to take you out." He spread his hands, to show he was unarmed – not that it mattered, as the Ghost was more than capable of killing with his hands, but it was a symbolic gesture. "You can work me willingly, or I can make you," he leered. "Your choice."_

_TC-002 was afraid. The fear created a chemical buzz in her brain, an almost pleasant feeling, and suddenly she felt something click in the back of her mind. Her mind opened, and images rushed at her. She knew what he wanted, she knew what he was going to do to get it – and suddenly, by reading his thoughts, she knew how to beat him._

_She had seen the older girls do this. Controlling the tremor in her limbs, she turned her face aside submissively, and knelt at his feet in the dingy refresher. He reached down and stroked her hair, and she shuddered at the touch. "Good," he whispered, "now you can..."_

_He never finished the sentence. With a wild scream, she leapt up, twisting her body away from his hands, and stuck hooked fingers into his eyes. He screamed in pain and lashed out with a kick – even blinded, he was stronger and better trained than her, and she tasted blood in her mouth from the blow. Opening up with her mind, she poured 'white noise' into his brain until he could no longer think straight, and then leapt within his guard and crushed his throat with a single knife-handed strike._

_He gurgled and wept, choking, for nearly a full minute until he died at her feet. Looking up, she looked at her reflection in the 'fresher's mirror. Her hands and mouth were bloody, and her eyes were filled with horror and fascination. The power of life and death in her own, tiny, blood-stained hands._

_Colonel Hunter had been so pleased, he had her placed in the Advanced Training program...after he had her cut open and a steel prison placed on her psychic powers._

_The memory dissolved.

* * *

_

The basso 'voice' in her soul spoke again, blurring the memory, and numbing the pain. All became warm and comfortable as it murmured comfort to her.

"This is the torment that you have lived with, all of your life. You have been cast out and isolated because of your unique gifts. Always pain follows pain." It was true, she realized. And now that Arcturus had left her to die, she was cut off from the entire universe, alone in her misery.

"Not alone, my favored daughter. Though your own kind have sacrificed you, broken you at their vile machines, there are those who seek your love. You will never be alone again, for I will watch over you, and you will have a family so vast that is defies description..."

_What are you, Voice?_

"I am Purity of Essence, the second son of the most ancient Creators. I wish to help you. I wish to take the pain away."

_You do not answer the question, Voice. What are you?_

"I am the Overmind, my sweet child. I am the cleansing flame that sweeps across the universe, leaving only perfection in my wake."

It couldn't be. The memory of Sarah Kerrigan tried to scream her hatred and defiance, but no breath could be drawn, no sound came out. _No. You are monster who knows only pain and conquest and heartless murder. You get the hell out of my head, alien!_

And the Voice left, and she was utterly alone. Icy cold consumed her, and there was no time and no light and no existence. Desperately she called out for somebody, anybody, anything to end this eternal nothingness. Anything to tell her that she was not alone.

* * *

Light-years away, aboard the Battlecruiser _Hyperion_, Jim Raynor awoke with a start, heart pounding. _Sarah..._


End file.
